Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards today called on Downing St to put a deal on the a table for the nationalist parties to back controversial boundary changes.

Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards today called on Downing St to put a deal on the table for the nationalist party to back controversial boundary changes which would see the number of Welsh Westminster seats fall by a quarter.

The Carmarthen East & Dinefwr MP insisted the party’s door was open and that Plaid would consider joining with other smaller parties to support the boundary changes if there was “a major, major” transfer of powers to the National Assembly.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has said the Liberal Democrats will vote against the changes in retaliation for Tory MPs scuppering proposals to introduce a largely elected House of Lords.

Labour has opposed plans to cut the number of Welsh MPs from 40 to 30.

But Mr Edwards said Plaid was open to supporting changes if there was a deal that would create “a de facto federal state”.

He said he would personally want to see new fiscal powers, the creation of a Welsh legal jurisdiction and responsibility for energy, criminal justice and broadcasting as part of a new Government of Wales Bill.

The deal, he added, would have to go well beyond the work of the Silk Commission launched by the Wales Office to propose changes to the present devolution settlement.

He said: “There has been no communication to date. Our door is open.

“We are obviously interested. Our position has been quite principled; we have always said that we’re not wedded to the idea of 40 Welsh MPs.

“But if you reduce the number of Welsh MPs then you have to transfer the powers correspondingly. If you’re going to take away a quarter of Welsh MPs then in our view that would warrant a significant transfer of powers.

“So we’re open to offers.”

Mr Edwards acknowledged that the reduction in MPs from 650 to 600 would make it easier for the Conservatives to win a majority in England, adding this was a reason why “we want as many powers as possible devolved so that the people of Wales are protected from Tory policies coming from [Westminster].”

Stressing the need for the transfer of powers to be explicitly laid out in new legislation, he said: “I think what it does essentially is just knock Silk out of the equation. To do the deal you’d have to have a Government of Wales Bill before we vote on the seats.

“The Tories haven’t got a good record of doing deals – if you compare the [2007 Labour-Plaid] One Wales agreement and the coalition agreement, basically the Lib Dems have been fleeced on everything.

“So we wouldn’t vote through this reduction in seats unless we knew we had those transfers already down.”

Mr Edwards expected that Northern Ireland parties could agree to a deal.

He said: “I think the Northern Irish parties, they can all be signed up simply with something like corporation tax.”

WalesOnline is part of Media Wales, publisher of the Western Mail, South Wales Echo, Wales on Sunday and the seven Celtic weekly titles, offering you unique access to our audience across Wales online and in print.